Maritime HTS: revolution or business as usual?
To mark the publication of its most recent maritime analysis, Maritime Satellite Markets on Cusp of Bandwidth Revolution, I asked Senior NSR Analyst Brad Grady to give MaritimeInsight readers an introduction to the report. With the level of background noise down a little this year – how should owners prepare for the introduction of High Throughput Satellite services?
Recent news reports – since vehemently denied by Inmarsat – suggesting the start of its Global Xpress service has been delayed, do not change the fact that the maritime markets are poised for a bandwidth revolution.
Nearly all segments of the maritime market feel the need for greater throughput to enable critical business and crew communications, despite – or perhaps because of – facing continuing pressures to cut costs and increase productivity.
With the on-coming wave of new High Throughput Satellites (HTS) entering the market, what changes should end-users expect? Is this new capacity business as usual, or should maritime customers really expect a revolution?
As the NSR report makes clear, between now and 2022, narrowband MSS will account for a majority of maritime satellite terminals, enabling everything from engine monitoring, to safety and distress. However, broadband continues to be a major driver of revenues and in-service units across all maritime market sectors. FSS C-band continues to grow but is vastly outpaced by FSS Ku-band and HTS solutions. Between 2012 and 2022, GEO HTS will add almost as many in-service units as FSS Ku-band.
HTS, a term coined by NSR, is any satellite or satellite payload that has at least twice the throughput of a traditional FSS satellite for the same amount of allocated frequency on orbit, can use any frequency and almost exclusively makes use of frequency reuse and multiple spot beams to increase throughput and reduce the price per bit delivered.
Upcoming satellite services such as Intelsat’s EpicNG, Telenor’s Thor-7, Inmarsat’s Global Xpress, and O3b’s constellation (amongst others) fall into this group. Combined, they will have capacity available to maritime customers across C/Ku/Ka-bands, and will have a significant impact on maritime customers over the next 10 years.
Globally, HTS will supply upwards of 2.3 terrabits per second (tbps) by 2022; a significant increase over current satellite throughput. For the maritime market that means greater access to applications such as video conferencing from remote vessels to shore-based centers, faster database replication between the onboard server and onshore datacenter and more bandwidth for social media to communicate with family onshore.
While all of these applications can be found now in the maritime market, HTS launches aim to enable these bandwidth-hungry services more cost-effectively than current [mostly L-band] satellite services.
But what should end-users look out for when considering these HTS-enabled services?
‘More bits for the same bucks’ is – the in simplest terms – the key take-away from industry-laden conversations typical of any reference to HTS. While the satellite industry continues to discuss Ka-band versus Ku-band, wide versus small spot-beams and open architecture versus closed platforms, end-users are left wondering – how much of this revolution should I worry about, and should I join this HTS revolution?
Scientific evidence supports the argument that Ka-band suffers from ‘rain-fade’ more than other frequencies, but new modulation techniques and hybrid network designs help mitigate those impacts. Spot-beam size and overall network throughputs are debates best left in the hands of service providers and satellite operators. End-users instead should focus on Service Level Agreements and Quality of Service requirements. Perhaps the biggest issue end-users should focus on, is that of open versus closed architecture networks.
Open architecture networks, such as Intelsat’s EpicNG, allow greater compatibility with existing remote terminals and equipment. Closed architecture networks, such as Inmarsat’s Global Xpress have a narrower set of terminal compatibility – usually requiring an upgrade at the vessel to enable the HTS service.
While one might equate the term open with better, in fact, the conversation is much more nuanced.
More so than traditional FSS networks, deployments of HTS-enabled services need to take a holistic approach – from vessel movements, and application criticality, to deck space, current VSAT equipment, and overall bandwidth needs.
Globally-trading vessels will likely favor an Inmarsat-based HTS solution whose coverage mirrors the existing Inmarsat L-band network. Vessel owners with significant investment into current equipment might lean towards an Intelsat-based solution due to the open-network design of EpicNG. Those with extremely high bandwidth or low latency needs such as cruise ships, offshore or government vessels might further lean towards an O3b-based solution.
In short, the conversation starts with the vessel’s current or prospective maritime service provider.
The bottom line is this. HTS promises a revolution both in throughput and total cost of ownership. Paired with a strong SLA and a close relationship with the service provider, end-users should have no trouble adopting HTS-based solutions.
However, end-users and service providers alike need to continue to match the best service for the given application – this might sometimes be HTS, sometimes FSS, sometimes MSS – and sometimes it might be all of the above.
Brad Grady is a Senior Analyst at Northern Sky Research, a leading international market research and consulting firm with a core focus on the satellite sector and related industries. He is the author of NSR’s latest report – Maritime Markets via Satellite, 1st Edition. Further information about NSR and Maritime Markets via Satellite can be found at www.nsr.com